I am a Who looking for my Whoville

Dear G, 

I wake up with a smile on my face and love in my heart. I want to thank you for the strength you have helped me gain. The strength not to fear, the strength to smile while the Grinch steals my tree, my gifts and my food. I know my real gift is my love. The gift you have given me in the past two years is the belief that I will survive. I can go through the worst of the worst and I will survive. 

Its more about pure survival that has truly taught me how strong I am. When you survive your worst nightmare you know joy, you know happiness in the heart, you know appreciation for life. I now know that I can be stripped of everything but I can never be stripped of me. I will always have me and I will always have more to give. 

I don't know why no one wanted to hear me in 2015 or why she contacted me again in 2017. I don't know why the lawyer believes me now that he is a rapist of more than one and didn't believe me then. I don't know why she choose to back out once again. I don't even know why I will wind up paying so much for a fight I keep getting thrown into that really doesn't involve me. I do know that whatever needs to be played out in the drama of men I will remain happy and peaceful. 

I do know that part of my codependency is wanting to help others or rather put others before me. I have been doing that way before my marriage. It was how I gained self worth. I truly believed that if I made a difference or saved a life no matter what the cost to myself it was worth it. I actually went into this fight saying openly and out loud. If I have to pay 20k for her to heal and to keep them safe then I will. It may sound great to an outsider, a fight worth fighting but in reality it was just another battle of control and proving my worth by saving a life.

I can guarantee that I am going to be completely aware of this pattern every time it creeps up. It's my drug and it is a sneaky bastard. "If I can save a life my life is worth living."I recently read an article fro the Winner's Circle Network called "The Purpose Within" and the fourth paragraph reads "when you determine your personal worth by your job, career,family, social position, income or appearance, you create a dilemma for yourself, The dilemma is that you must constantly work for approval, love, acceptance and control, in order to feel worthy." This was not a new idea for me but it was an ah ha moment. I knew I was a workaholic and that I had gone through many years of schooling all to prove I was "good enough" but I didn't realize it was also this same whole in my heart that was pushing me to "save the world" I have always become personally invested in whether my advice worked or my support gained them success, If someone I wanted to help didn't receive my help or became depressed I was a failure and I became depressed. Everything about who I have believed I am has been rooted in codependency.

For the first time I see that my need to help with fear and chaos in the hearts of the men and women around me is a symptom of my codependency. It doesn't mean I can not do this it means I can not be attached to it. Or as my mother would say "I need to detach". I hate when she would say that but I hated it because I didn't understand it. I completely understand it now. I have been learning this detachment since the day I woke up from my nightmare. However this is the first time my inability to control or heal hasn't left me a wreckage of depression and self doubt. For the first time in, shit probably 41 years, I'm going to wake up singing no matter what battle is lost or won because that shit doesn't define me. As a matter of fact it's no longer even a battle. It's all just an adventure.